Exhausted PPCRV technicians call it a day

MANILA, Philippines - Exhaustion of its technical experts forced the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) to stop transmitting the latest tally yesterday, an official said.

PPCRV secretary-general Clifford Sorita said for one day, the council would not issue updates on the tally transmitted through the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines being manned by its technical experts at Pius XII Catholic Center on UN Avenue in Manila.

Sorita said they hope that when they resume the transmission of the tally today, there would be a big leap from the last record of 90.16 percent.

Yesterday was the first time that the PPCRV failed to release updates on its tally since it officially began operations last May 10.

The PPCRV, tapped by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) as the official election watchdog to verify votes in clustered precincts, has been releasing data at a snail’s pace since Friday.

As of 5:31 p.m. Friday, it stuck with 90 percent vote count data.

The data transmitted from PCOS machines only reached 90.06 percent and two days after or until yesterday, only a minuscule .10 percent was recorded.

The PPCRV, which originally targeted to finish operations last Friday, has extended its deadline to end its operations tomorrow. It plans to transfer to a smaller room if necessary.

Sorita said the team leaders of PPCRV partners from CyberSoft had been working non-stop since day one and appealed to be given a rest day.

“One of those in charge of our server, from CyberSoft, asked (for a rest day)... After all, the Comelec cancelled its canvassing for the day,” he said.

“The Comelec server is working but they are not doing anything... There is no canvassing, there is no one in charge of downloading (the data) because it’s Sunday,” he added.

He clarified that the server is working, and that they just temporarily stopped the canvassing.

The pacing is opposite with the encoding of election returns (ERs).

Sorita said they have already encoded 40 percent of the 80 percent - or some 61,000 ERs - that they received for manual counting.

The encoding of the ERs was hastened by the dedication of volunteers, mostly students from various schools.

But yesterday, more parish-based volunteers, especially nuns from different congregations, helped encode the votes.

“Some of them were those who served as poll watchers during the May 10 elections. They served as poll watchers in Metro Manila even during the random manual audit that lasted until Wednesday,” Sorita said.

“They rested for three days and are now again working as volunteer encoders,” he said.